What REALLY Happened To WWE's 16 Tallest Wrestlers Ever?
8. Eli Cottonwood (7')
Known For: "I thought he said he didn't have a moustache?". Michael Cole's meme-worthy line poked fun at poor Eli Cottonwood during the second season of NXT (when the show was in its original faux-reality run) in 2010. WWE set aspiring stars up to fail by feeding them silly promo topics like: "Moustache", then giving them 10 seconds to ramble on incoherently about it.
Yep, that one mortifying moment about sums up Cottonwood's WWE career.
What Happened To Him: Eli did briefly align with future great Bray Wyatt in 2012, but it went nowhere. "Went nowhere" would unfortunately encapsulate his stint with WWE, being brutally candid. Cottonwood never recovered from the moustache-related embarrassment (even he knew he'd spewed utter nonsense during that promo challenge). It was like his confidence was completely shot to pieces.
Eli requested his own release from WWE in 2012, then formally retired from the ring in 2016 despite working exactly no matches since leaving. If you've never seen the NXT bit, then you owe it to yourself to give that a look - it's second hand embarrassment city to witness, but you'll shake your head knowing that management planned to clown young stars rather than encourage them to grow and get better.
The original NXT concept sucked. Praise the lord for 2012's reinvention.
Remarkably, Cottonwood went on to open his own yoga studio and even ran a wrestling promotion called Florida Hardcore Wrestling between 2016-2017. There's no record of him wrestling for the company though, and he never did grow out that moustache. The only other tidbit about Eli is that WWE tacked on an extra inch to make him 7'1 rather than the already-impressive 7ft.